Adaptive Unstructured Grid Generation for Viscous Flow Applications

12th AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, San Diego, CA., AIAA Paper 95-1726CP, June 19-22 1995

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

David L. Marcum: NSF Engineering Research Centerfor Computational Field Simulation, Mechanical Engineering Department, Mississippi State University, USA, e-mail: marcum@erc.msstate.edu
Nigel P. Weatherill, Michael J. Marchant, and Frank Beaven: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Wales, Swansea, Swansea, UK.

Abstract
A procedure is presented for efficient generation of high-quality solution- adapted grids suitable for viscous flow applications. The overall procedure is based on an existing grid generation method which uses advancing-front/advancing-normal point placement with direct insertion and iterative local-reconnection. With this method, high- quality unstructured grids can be efficiently generated about geometrically complex configurations with field point spacing derived from the boundaries. The procedure is modified to allow the field point spacing to vary based on a flow field solution using adaptive grid regeneration. Inviscid features, such as shock waves and stagnation points, are resolved using iterative adaptation sources derived from the flow field solution. Detached viscous features, such as wakes, are resolved by tracking selected s lines and treating them as boundary surfaces with a specified spacing. Results are presented for two- dimensional cases with multiple viscous wakes and strong inviscid features. Preliminary results are also presented for extension of this methodology to three-dimensions using stream surface tracking. The results indicate that high-quality solution-adapted unstructured grids suitable for viscous flow applications can be generated efficiently.